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To the Fake “Human Rights” Activists

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Elliott Hamilton
Elliott Hamilton is a JD/MPH candidate at Boston College Law School and Tufts University School of Medicine. He is considered
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Since the start of Operation Protective Edge, I have seen you waving your Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) flags chanting, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free.” I have seen you throwing blood libel at my friends and colleagues. I have seen you comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. I have heard you personally charge me with eating Arab babies and with committing “genocide.” I heard about you physically assaulting my friends and verbally harassing us with vitriolic Jew-hatred. Even worse, I saw my own people, the Jewish people, perpetuating such anti-Semitism in a way I have never seen before.

While I see or hear about all of the above, you then proceed to claim that you’re standing up for human rights. You claim that you are fighting “oppression” against the Palestinian-Arabs face on a daily basis. You claim to fight for freedom. You claim that you seek peace in the region. For some of you, you claim that you are upholding Jewish values by supporting these actions. Most importantly, you claim that you are standing up for the Palestinian-Arabs themselves. Here is the reality: You lie, and you have always lied.

True human rights activists do not spew Jew-hatred like it is second nature. They do not compare Jewish self-determination to racism. They do not hold double-standards against a people undergoing rocket fire at a rate unprecedented in the modern era. They do not stand in defense of a group of people who use their own citizens as human shields while firing rockets into another civilian population. They do not support diabolical terrorism bent on destroying the self-determination and the existence of another people. They do not stand by while propagandists emit vitriolic anti-Semitism against a state that has not only demonstrated peaceful intentions, but restraint against additional civilian casualties.

Israel is far from perfect. Like every other nation, it possesses faults that often need pointing out and change. However, Israel does not deserve such double-standards and demonization. Israel does not need more people claiming that “Hitler was right” when he rationalized systematically murdering the Jewish people en masse. Israel does not need to bury its dead civilians and soldiers because terrorists continue to wreak havoc on its existence. If you truly cared for human rights, you would target the true cause of the current escalation: Hamas.

Hamas broke two ceasefires. Hamas launched rockets into civilian populations. Hamas hid behind human shields. Hamas infiltrated Israel, from tunnels and from the sea. Hamas operatives kidnapped and brutally murdered Eyal Yifrach, Gil’ad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel in cold blood. Hamas stole money and aid from the people in Gaza. Hamas leaders hide in Qatar while simultaneously calling for its people to die as martyrs. Hamas does not care for the Palestinian-Arabs in Gaza; it cares about its glory and its fight to delegitimize and to destroy Israel. When 70% of the Gaza population wanted to end hostilities, Hamas kept fighting and escalating the situation. Now, the Israel Defense Forces operate within the Gaza Strip to hit Hamas harder than ever before.

If you want to refer to yourself as a “human rights activist,” then you must target the true source of this ongoing conflict. You must condemn those responsible for putting innocent civilians, both Israeli and Palestinian-Arab, in danger of tragic demise. You must encourage the population of Gaza that does want a ceasefire to overthrow Hamas and to replace it with leadership that wants the violence to end. Neither of those things have been accomplished. Therefore, you must change your words and your attitudes.

You must stop your double-standards against the only country that cares about Palestinian-Arab civilians. You must stop excusing Hamas for hiding rockets in UNRWA schools. You must condemn Hamas leaders for cowering in fear while the people it rules over dies ruthlessly as human shields. You must start holding these governments responsible for the abuses against their own people.

Hillel Neuer made an outstanding point that you so-called “human rights” activists need to understand. If you do not call out such travesties committed by Hamas, as well as the thousands of human rights abuses committed in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and many other countries, but instead you target Israel, then the following conclusion must be made: You are not a human rights activist, you are simply anti-Israel. Therefore, according to the US State Department, you are anti-Semitic.

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